We went not far before Jay, his sisters, and I stopped at Stella Katragama for about 20 minutes. After the seeing the sites, the gals started collecting food to buy and take home. It's common practice to buy from stands along the highways here. Each area is known for particular fruits, vegetables, of other products. Families supplement their livings by having a fresh assortment for sale in their front yards. At this particular point I think they filled up on wood apples, mangoes, squash, melons, and a few other types of vegetables. Further along, they stopped for doldol (sweets) and curd (buffalo yoghurt). But we got out before the last two. In fact, we only travelled about 18 kilometers to the town of Tissamahara. We figure this is a good stopping point if we decide to head into the high Sri Lankan mountains. So, the van driver stopped and we check out the Tissamahara Hotel. We found it to our liking. So, we took out our backpacks and waved goodbye to the family.
We walked around the town and bought Christmas cards although it's probably to late to send internationally now. The only main adventure was to go to the town of Kirinda. The area was hit hard by the 2004 tsunami. Yet there were some stunning beach views. We climbed huge rock hills where there is a temple of historical significance. It's actually quite hard to turn around in this country without bumping into ancient ruins and places from ancient stories.
Click on this photo to open a larger version in Flickr.